which seemed to her to suit its spirit and words. It is the ballad which gives the betrayed lover's farewell to the "wild ferry which Hacon could brave, when the peaks of the skerry were white with the wave," and to the maid who "may look over those wild waves in vain for the skiff of her lover, he comes not again." For the broken vows, the maiden may fling them on the wild current, and the mermaiden may sing them. "New sweetness they'll give her bewildering strain; there is one who will never believe them again." If Minola had really been a betrayed lover, she could not have expressed more simply and more movingly the proud passion of a broken heart. As Lucy's face was upturned in the moonlight, Victor saw that her eyes were swimming in tears. He was greatly charmed and touched by her sensitiveness, and felt drawn to her in an unusual way. He turned his eyes away, fearing she might know that he had seen her tears.

Minola came down from the steps silently. As yet, no one had thanked her or said her songs gave pleasure; but Minola felt that she had pleased them, and that they liked her to sing, and for the time she was happy. If she could have known that her song had brought Victor Heron nearer in feeling than ever he was before to her friend Lucy, she would perhaps have felt an added although a rather melancholy pleasure in the power of her song. Certainly the sensation that passed through Victor's breast as he heard the last lines of the song, and looked on Lucy's face, and saw the sparkling tears in her eyes, was something new to him, and in itself no poor tribute to the influence of the music.

Mr. Money was the first to speak.

"Your way of singing, Miss Grey, reminds me of what I once heard a very clever man say of the reading of Shakespeare's sonnets. He said he never heard them properly read except by a man who was dying, like your friend the lover of Barbara Allen, and who could hardly speak above his breath."

"My dear papa, what a compliment to Nola !" the astonished Lucy exclaimed.

"You don't understand it, Lucelet-Miss Grey does, I am sure, and I hope Heron does, although I am not so sure in his case. It means that this poor dying poet-he was a poet, didn't I say?” "No, indeed you didn't," said Lucy.

"Oh, yes, he was a poet. Well, this poor dying poet had to make such use of his failing voice to express all the meaning of the poems he loved above all others, that he would not allow the most delicate touch of meaning or feeling to escape in his reading. Now you begin to understand, Lucelet? Miss Grey's singing is as fine as that."

Oh, if Nola is compared to a poet I don't mind. But a dying poet is rather a melancholy idea, and not a bit like Nola. I always think of Nola as full of health and life, and everything bright and delightful."

"Still I quite understand what Mr. Money means, and it is a great compliment," Minola said. "There must have been something wonderful, supernatural, in hearing this dying poet recite such lines." "People with great strong voices hardly ever think much of what can be done by mere expression," Money remarked.

"Then we ought to be glad if we have not good voices?" Minola asked.

"Well, yes; in many cases, at least. sing all the better."

I think so.

It makes you

"And perhaps they would sing best who had no voice at all." "Perhaps so," said Money gravely; "I shouldn't wonder."

After this they all laughed, and the moment of sentiment was gone. But yet Victor Heron remained very silent and seemingly thoughtful. The new and strange sensation which had arisen in him from hearing Minola's voice and seeing Lucy's tear-sparkled eyes had not faded yet. It perplexed him, and yet had something delightful in it. The author of "Caleb Williams" declared that in it he would give to the world such a book that no man who had read it should ever be quite the same man again. Such a change it happens to more ordinary beings to work unconsciously in many men or women. A verse of a ballad, an air played on a harp, a chance word or two, the expression of a lip or an eye, an all unstudied attitude, shall change a whole life so that never again shall it be exactly what it was before.

"We must be getting home," said Money. "There are speeches to be made to-morrow, Heron, my good fellow-there are deputations to receive, and I own to being a man who likes to sleep."

"Just here and just now," said Victor, "the speech-making and the deputations seem rather vulgar business."

He thought so now very sincerely. A sense of the vulgarity and futility of commonplace ambitions and struggles is one of the immemorial effects of moonlight, and music, and midnight air, and soft skies. But in Heron's case there was something more than all this which he did not yet understand.

"The things have to be got through anyhow," Mr. Money insisted, "and these young ladies will be losing altogether their beauty-sleep."

"Oh, I think the idea of going to sleep on such a night is odious,

when we might be out under the stars in this delightful place!" Lucy exclaimed. “And besides, papa, the truth is that Nola and I always sit up together for ever so long after everybody else has gone, no matter what the hour may be—and so we might as well be here as anywhere else. If our beauty depends on early hours it is forfeited long since, and there's no use thinking about it now.”

"I know Miss Grey is far too sensible a girl to share any such sentiments-so come with me, Miss Grey, and we shall at least set a good example."

He took Minola's arm and drew it within his own with goodhumoured mastery, and led her away. Lucy and Victor had perforce to follow. They ran after Money and his companion. Minola could hear their laughter and the sound of their quick feet as they approached. Then when they came near they slackened their speed, and lagged a little behind. She could hear the sound of their voices as they talked. They spoke in low tones, but the sweet pure midnight air allowed at least the faint murmur of the tones to reach her ear as she walked quickly on, leaning on Mr. Money's arm, and trying to talk to him about the prospects of the coming election.

"If he loves her, he must tell her so now-here," Minola thought. "This surely is the place and the hour for a declaration of love, and he does love her—she is so very sweet and good."

She tried to make herself believe that she was very happy, and that she rejoiced to know that Lucy was loved-by him, and even that she was rather amused in a high, unconcerned way by their lovemaking. When they had crossed the stile of the park and passed into the streets, Victor and Lucy came up with them again, and walked by their side.

"It is done," Minola thought. "She has heard him now, and she has all her wish." Aloud she said, "I suppose you are right, Mr. Money, about the ballot-I had not thought much of that, but I am sure you must be right."

(To be continued.)

29

ON SOME MARVELS IN TELE

THE

GRAPHY.

PART II.

HE next marvel of telegraphy to be described is the transmission of actual facsimiles of writings or drawings. So far as strict sequence of subject-matter is concerned, I ought, perhaps, at this point, to show how duplex telegraphy has been surpassed by a recent invention enabling three or four or more messages to be simultaneously transmitted telegraphically. But it will be more convenient to consider this wonderful advance after I have described the methods by which facsimiles of handwriting, &c., are

If the insulated wire is twisted in the form of a helix or coil round a bar of soft iron, the bar becomes magnetised while the current is passing. If the bar be bent into the horse-shoe form, as in fig. 6, where A C B represents the bar, a b c d e f the coil of insulated wire, the bar acts as a magnet while the current is passing along the coil, but ceases to do so as soon as the current is interrupted.1

1 I must caution the reader against fig. 348 in Guillemin's Application of the Physical Forces, in which the part c d of the wire is not shown. The two coils are in reality part of a single coil, divided into two to permit of the bar being bent; and to remove the part c d is to divide the wire, and, of course, break the current. It will be seen that c d passes from the remote side of coil bc, fig. 6, to the near side of coil de. If it were taken round the remote side of the latter coil, the current along this would neutralise the effect of the current along the other.

If, then, we have a telegraphic wire from a distant station in electric connection with the wire a b c, the part e f descending to an earthplate, then, according as the operator at that distant station transmits or stops the current, the iron A CB is magnetised or demagnetised. The part c is commonly replaced by a flat piece of iron, as is supposed to be the case with the temporary magnets shown in fig. 7, where this flat piece is below the coils.

So far back as 1838 this property was applied by Morse in America in the recording instrument which bears his name, and is now (with slight modifications) in general use not only in America but on the Continent. The principle of this instrument is exceedingly simple. Its essential parts are shown in fig. 7; H is the handle, н the lever of the manipulator at the station a. The manipulator is shown in the position for receiving a message from the station B along the wire w. The handle H' of the manipulator at the station B is shown depressed, making connection at a' with the

wire from the battery N' P'.

Thus a current passes through the handle to ', along the wire to c and through b to the coil of the temporary magnet м, after circling which it passes to the earth at e and so by E' to the negative pole N'. The passage of this current magnetises M, which draws down the armature m. Thus the lever 7, pulled down on this side, presses upwards the pointed style s against a strip of paper which is steadily rolled off from the wheel w so long as a message is being received. (The mechanism for this purpose is not indicated in fig. 7.) Thus, so long as the operator at H' holds down the handle H', the style s marks the moving strip of paper, the spring under the lever s 7, drawing the style away so soon as the current ceases to flow and the magnet to act. If he simply depresses the handle for an instant, a dot is marked; if longer, a dash; and by various combinations of dots and dashes all